Red Sky at Noon: 0 (Moscow Trilogy) - Softcover

A gripping novel. Montefiore is brilliant at depicting brooding menace. As the penal battalions are given increasingly risky missions, it is Benya's journey on horseback that we follow behind enemy lines in the grasslands of southern Russia. An epic tale. The language is arresting. It's all beautifully done: a western on the eastern front.

Amidst the killing and the chaos, a group of prisoners are offered a chance of redemption on a secret mission behind enemy lines on horseback. Montefiore has a keen sense of place and an eye of unexpected details. Switching between the frontline on the Russian steppes and Stalin in the Kremlin, this is an exciting and fast-paced adventure and a lament for love in dark and brutal times.

In this third volume of The Moscow Trilogy, the fate of combatants and civilians is often harsh. With his feel for vivid and immediate drama and impressive research, the author evokes the extreme turbulence and violence impacting on individuals. Writing with passion, Montefiore makes the point that, up against the huge forces of war, the struggle for personal resolution can be tragic--but never wasted.

The gritty war scenes and the lovers' pursuit keep the pages turning.

The gripping final installment of The Moscow Trilogy tells of a man wrongly imprisoned in the Gulags and his fight for redemption. Meticulously researched. In this searing tale of love and war, most moving is the redemptive relationship between a soldier and a nurse that blooms amid the brutality. An homage to the author's favorite Russian writers and the Western masterpieces of Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy and Elmore Leonard, such influences pervade this atmospheric tale told in the author's distinct own voice.

Montefiore's skill with imagery is such that he immerses the reader in an utterly ethereal landscape, only to snap them into horror as men emerge from rippling sunflowers with 'swords streaked with blood and grass, ' and that soft horizon is suddenly filled 'squadrons of tanks like steel cockroaches.' Montefiore can effortlessly meld beauty with battle. Vivid and impeccably researched.

Montefiore is a natural storyteller who brings his encyclopedic knowledge of Russian history to life in language that glitters. Montefiore shows that the historian seeking the truth must call upon creativity as much as upon meticulous research. Here's hoping we get more spellbinding historical fiction from him.

An important and gripping description of conditions early in World War II in Russia, particularly the extensive use of horse cavalry, of which--I suspect--most of us have been unaware.

Montefiore's encyclopedic knowledge of Russian history gives his stories a gripping vibrancy. There's a twist to the end of the story that is by turns satisfying and heartbreaking. In the end, love does win out.

Red Sky at Noon is an epic adventure story set against the backdrop of the most awful war in human history. The master historian shape-shifts into the brilliant novelist. Ridiculously good.--Dan Snow

Simon Sebag Montefiore's prize-winning, bestselling novels are published in twenty-seven languages. Red Sky at Noon is the last of the acclaimed "Moscow Trilogy," which includes Sashenka and One Night in Winter, which was long-listed for the Orwell Prize. Montefiore's nonfiction books include Jerusalem: The Biography, a #1 Holiday Book Pick on the TODAY show and under option with Lionsgate, Young Stalin, winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Biography, and most recently, The Romanovs, which was a New York Times bestseller. He is also the author of the childrens' book series, The Royal Rabbits of London, co-written with Santa Montefiore, which is being developed for a feature film by 20th Century Fox. Visit him at www.simonsebagmontefiore.com or on twitter @simonmontefiore.